ITSM - what is it and where to start implementation
Yesterday we published a selection of materials for Habré for those who would like to understand ITSM - to study trends and tools. Today we continue to talk about how to integrate ITSM into the company's business processes, and what cloud tools can help with this.
/ Pxhere / pd
The traditional approach to the management of IT-departments is called "resource". In simple terms, it implies a focus on working with servers, networks and other hardware - “IT resources”. Guided by such a model, the IT department often misses what other departments are doing, and it does not start from their “user” requirements and needs of the company's customers, but comes from the opposite side - from resources.
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An alternative to this approach to the management of IT - ITSM (IT Service Management). This is a service method, which proposes to focus not on technology and hardware, but on users (which can be both employees of the organization and customers) and their needs.
The ITSM methodology makes the IT department a service provider for other parts of the organization. It ceases to be an auxiliary element responsible for maintaining the health of the IT infrastructure: individual servers, networks and applications.
The company formalizes the services that it wants to receive from the IT department, and proceeds to work according to the “customer-supplier” model. As a result, the business begins to make its demands on the services, formulating the problems and tasks that users face. And the IT department decides by itself what technical means to meet these needs.
/ José Alejandro Cuffia / Unsplash
In general, the company's infrastructure is divided into separate services that automate certain business tasks. To manage these services, specialized software platforms are used. The most famous in the ITSM market is the cloud serviceNow system. For several years in a row, it has been ranked number one in the Gartner Quadrant.
We at IT Guild are engaged in the integration of ServiceNow solutions.
We tell you how to approach the integration of ITSM in the company. We present several business processes, the automation of which allows you to optimize the work of IT departments. We will also talk about the ServiceNow platform tools that help to do this.
Asset Management (ITAM, IT Asset Management) . This is a process that is responsible for keeping track of IT assets throughout their life cycle: from acquisition or development to write-off. In this case, IT assets include various kinds of software and hardware: PCs, laptops, servers, office equipment, and Internet resources. Automation of asset management allows a company to more efficiently use resources and forecast needs.
Help with the solution of this problem can be two ServiceNow applications - Discovery and Mapping Service. The first one automatically finds and identifies new assets (for example, servers connected to the corporate network) and enters information about them into a special database (called CMDB ).
Second, it defines the relationship between services and the infrastructure elements on which these services are built. As a result, all processes in the IT department and companies become more transparent.
We learned about how to implement asset management and work with these two applications in a corporate blog - there is a detailed practical guide ( once and twice ). In it we covered all the stages of implementation: from planning to audit.
Financial Management (ITFM, IT Financial management) . This is a process, part of which is the optimization of IT services from an economic point of view. IT and organizations need to collect financial information to understand the overall picture of costs and revenues.
The ServiceNow Financial Management module is capable of helping with the collection of this information. It is a single control panel, where IT staff can plan budgets, keep track of costs for various activities and invoice for services (both to other departments of the organization and its customers). You can see what it looks like in our review of the ServiceNow Financial Management tool. We also prepared a short guide on the implementation of financial management processes - in it we analyze the main stages.
Data center management and monitoring (ITOM, IT Operations Management) . The purpose of this process is to monitor the components of the IT infrastructure and load balancing. IT specialists need to understand how a change in the performance of a server or a network switch will affect the quality of the services provided.
The service portal ServiceWatch is capable of helping with this task. It collects information about the infrastructure using the module Discovery already mentioned and automatically builds dependencies between business services and IT services. How to collect data on IT-systems using Discovery, we told in the corporate blog . Even prepared a video on the topic .
Self-service portal (Service Portal) . Such portals give users the opportunity to independently solve their problems with software or hardware, without resorting to the help of technical support specialists. There are several options for building such portals - a static knowledge base, FAQ, or dynamic pages with the ability to receive applications.
We talked more about the types of portals in one of the past materials on Habré .
To create such a Service Portal helps the eponymous tool from ServiceNow. The appearance of the portal is configured by additional pages or widgets, as well as using the development tools AngularJS, SCSS and JavaScript.
/ Pxhere / pd
Development Management (Agile Development) . This is a process based on flexible development methodologies. They have many advantages (continuous development and change, iteration), but the fragmentation of small groups of developers, each of which is engaged in their project, does not always give the management a vision of the overall situation and progress.
The ServiceNow Agile Development tool solves the problem and gives centralized control over the development process. This approach facilitates the process of collaboration and control over the entire life cycle of software development: from planning to support a complete system. How to start working with the Agile Development tool we told in this article .
Of course, these are not all processes that can be standardized and automated using ITSM and ServiceNow. We tell about other possibilities of the platform on our website - there is also an opportunity to ask questions to our specialists.
Materials on the topic from our corporate blog:
/ Pxhere / pd
What do you need from this
The traditional approach to the management of IT-departments is called "resource". In simple terms, it implies a focus on working with servers, networks and other hardware - “IT resources”. Guided by such a model, the IT department often misses what other departments are doing, and it does not start from their “user” requirements and needs of the company's customers, but comes from the opposite side - from resources.
')
An alternative to this approach to the management of IT - ITSM (IT Service Management). This is a service method, which proposes to focus not on technology and hardware, but on users (which can be both employees of the organization and customers) and their needs.
As representatives of IBM say , this approach makes it possible to reduce transaction costs and improve the quality of services provided by the IT department.
What makes ITSM in practice
The ITSM methodology makes the IT department a service provider for other parts of the organization. It ceases to be an auxiliary element responsible for maintaining the health of the IT infrastructure: individual servers, networks and applications.
The company formalizes the services that it wants to receive from the IT department, and proceeds to work according to the “customer-supplier” model. As a result, the business begins to make its demands on the services, formulating the problems and tasks that users face. And the IT department decides by itself what technical means to meet these needs.
/ José Alejandro Cuffia / Unsplash
In general, the company's infrastructure is divided into separate services that automate certain business tasks. To manage these services, specialized software platforms are used. The most famous in the ITSM market is the cloud serviceNow system. For several years in a row, it has been ranked number one in the Gartner Quadrant.
We at IT Guild are engaged in the integration of ServiceNow solutions.
We tell you how to approach the integration of ITSM in the company. We present several business processes, the automation of which allows you to optimize the work of IT departments. We will also talk about the ServiceNow platform tools that help to do this.
Where to start, and what tools are there
Asset Management (ITAM, IT Asset Management) . This is a process that is responsible for keeping track of IT assets throughout their life cycle: from acquisition or development to write-off. In this case, IT assets include various kinds of software and hardware: PCs, laptops, servers, office equipment, and Internet resources. Automation of asset management allows a company to more efficiently use resources and forecast needs.
Help with the solution of this problem can be two ServiceNow applications - Discovery and Mapping Service. The first one automatically finds and identifies new assets (for example, servers connected to the corporate network) and enters information about them into a special database (called CMDB ).
Second, it defines the relationship between services and the infrastructure elements on which these services are built. As a result, all processes in the IT department and companies become more transparent.
We learned about how to implement asset management and work with these two applications in a corporate blog - there is a detailed practical guide ( once and twice ). In it we covered all the stages of implementation: from planning to audit.
Financial Management (ITFM, IT Financial management) . This is a process, part of which is the optimization of IT services from an economic point of view. IT and organizations need to collect financial information to understand the overall picture of costs and revenues.
The ServiceNow Financial Management module is capable of helping with the collection of this information. It is a single control panel, where IT staff can plan budgets, keep track of costs for various activities and invoice for services (both to other departments of the organization and its customers). You can see what it looks like in our review of the ServiceNow Financial Management tool. We also prepared a short guide on the implementation of financial management processes - in it we analyze the main stages.
Data center management and monitoring (ITOM, IT Operations Management) . The purpose of this process is to monitor the components of the IT infrastructure and load balancing. IT specialists need to understand how a change in the performance of a server or a network switch will affect the quality of the services provided.
The service portal ServiceWatch is capable of helping with this task. It collects information about the infrastructure using the module Discovery already mentioned and automatically builds dependencies between business services and IT services. How to collect data on IT-systems using Discovery, we told in the corporate blog . Even prepared a video on the topic .
Self-service portal (Service Portal) . Such portals give users the opportunity to independently solve their problems with software or hardware, without resorting to the help of technical support specialists. There are several options for building such portals - a static knowledge base, FAQ, or dynamic pages with the ability to receive applications.
We talked more about the types of portals in one of the past materials on Habré .
To create such a Service Portal helps the eponymous tool from ServiceNow. The appearance of the portal is configured by additional pages or widgets, as well as using the development tools AngularJS, SCSS and JavaScript.
/ Pxhere / pd
Development Management (Agile Development) . This is a process based on flexible development methodologies. They have many advantages (continuous development and change, iteration), but the fragmentation of small groups of developers, each of which is engaged in their project, does not always give the management a vision of the overall situation and progress.
The ServiceNow Agile Development tool solves the problem and gives centralized control over the development process. This approach facilitates the process of collaboration and control over the entire life cycle of software development: from planning to support a complete system. How to start working with the Agile Development tool we told in this article .
Of course, these are not all processes that can be standardized and automated using ITSM and ServiceNow. We tell about other possibilities of the platform on our website - there is also an opportunity to ask questions to our specialists.
Materials on the topic from our corporate blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/453526/
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